In his path-breaking report on global warming, Sir Nicholas Stern said that ‘climate change is the greatest market failure the world has ever seen’.

This book argues that to meet the global warming crisis we need to change our economic ideas radically. The short-term price of fossil fuel is cheap, according to the market, but we will pay an incalculable price in the long term.

Free markets promise endless economic expansion, but this will cost the earth.

Aarons challenges the influential prophet of free-market theory, Friedrich Hayek, whose ideas have heavily influenced governments around the world for decades.

Hayek’s economic theory is based on a social philosophy which is incapable of valuing the environment or social justice. He sees human well-being in material terms.

This book recognizes the usefulness of markets, but argues that without some conscious human control they are unsustainable, and would ultimately destroy the conditions